BROOKLYN, Mich. - Carl Edwards was all in yesterday at Michigan International Speedway.

AP photos

Above, Carl Edwards celebrates his victory in the Citizens Bank 400 with his traditional backflip. The win at Michigan International Speedway broke a 52-race victory drought for the Columbia native. Below, Edwards, left, and his motor home driver, Tom Giacchi, had reasons to smile yesterday after Edwards won his first Nextel Cup race since Nov. 6, 2005. Giacchi hadn’t shaved since the previous victory.

"Second place would have felt about the same as chopping off my arm today," the driver of the No. 99 Ford said. "I wanted to win. That’s it."

After Edwards’ victory in the Citizens Bank 400, the only thing being chopped off was the hair on Tom Giacchi’s chinny-chin-chin.

That whole story started on Nov. 6, 2005, the day Edwards won a Nextel Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway. Giacchi, a longtime friend from Columbia who drives Edwards’ motor home to the track each weekend, had a little extra growth on his face and decided not to shave again until after Edwards’ next victory.

That’s when things started getting ugly. Literally.

"Tom has a nice face," Edwards said. "I mean, he used to get dates and everything."

Lately? Not so much.

Edwards didn’t win a Cup race in 2006, and until yesterday he hadn’t won this year, either.

So Giacchi’s beard kept growing. And growing. And growing.

"It had turned into its own animal, so to speak," Edwards said of Giacchi’s 6½-inch growth. Indeed, a blog at www.tomgiacchi.com featured updates about sightings of "The NASCAR Yeti." Yeti is another name for the Abominable Snowman.

"I just hated to see him like that for so long," Edwards said. "I’d wake up in the morning and Tom would walk in and I would just laugh. It’s unreal. I think he’s got memoirs from the experience - ‘Bearded Like Me’ or something is going to be the title.

"It’s changed his life a little. People grab their children in Wal-Mart and pull them aside, or lock their doors when he walks by on the street."

Edwards used scissors in victory lane to take a couple of snips off the beard. Minutes after the race was over, the Web page featured a large tombstone declaring the Yeti a goner.

So, too, is Edwards’ 52-race winless streak, as well as Chevrolet’s 12-race Nextel Cup victory splurge. No other manufacturer had won since Matt Kenseth, Edwards’ teammate at Roush Fenway Racing, won the season’s second race at California Speedway on Feb. 25.

"I learned through trial and a lot of error that you can’t make things happen faster than they’re going to," Edwards said. "You can only do the best job you can."

Such patience was certainly tried during a busy weekend for Edwards. He was leading Saturday night’s Busch race at Kentucky Speedway but got wrecked on a restart and finished 33rd. He got back to Michigan about 2:30 a.m. and then got a penalty for going too fast as he left pit road about 70 laps into yesterday’s race.

That put him back outside the top 25, but Edwards steadily worked his way toward the front. So, too, did Martin Truex, who had dominated early but got hit from behind as he tried to miss Ryan Newman’s spinning car on Lap 75.

Jimmie Johnson led a significant portion of the race until Edwards and Truex battled back, but Johnson was enough off-sequence on pit stops that he ran out of fuel with seven laps to go. He wound up 19th.

Truex, who got his first Cup win two weeks ago at Dover and then finished third at Pocono, charged from more than two seconds back to within a few yards of Edwards’ rear bumper with about 15 laps to go.

"I figuratively hit a wall when I got about 10 car lengths from him," Truex said, saying his car got tight, thanks to aerodynamics, as he closed in. "Then, I actually ran into the wall and pushed my right-front fender in, and it got worse."

At that point, Truex just settled in and made sure he got to the end with a runner-up finish. Tony Stewart was third, a decent result given that he started 41st and damaged his car in Saturday’s practice.

Casey Mears, winner of the Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte, got his second straight fourth-place finish, with Dale Earnhardt Jr. fifth.

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